


the origin of love

by rottenwork (hotdammneron)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tenderness, ah shit here we go again, memories and dreaming and yearning for something so slightly out of reach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 13:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdammneron/pseuds/rottenwork
Summary: In memories, in dreams, this one at least, Crowley’s wings feel lighter, and some part of him aches.





	the origin of love

**Author's Note:**

> this one goes out to me in 2012 listening to origin of love by mika for the first time and going completely fucking apeshit
> 
> everything inspired by this comic on tumblr that i've been thinking about all day https://junvii.tumblr.com/post/185498079318/thinkin-about-pre-fallen-crowley-they-only
> 
> find me on tumblr @/mollstermash, twitter @blghorny

It’s nothing short of a miracle, so to speak, that Crowley has - this, whatever this is. He’s been around a little too long to call it dumb luck.

Of course, it’s not much, just a little flash of a memory playing like one of those viewfinders flashing photos over a screen. It’s nothing fancy, not like all the better memories, but sometimes he wishes it was, wishes he could trade in his vivid recollection of the fifteenth century for a little more of… this. 

It’s a memory, nothing more, but it feels like more. 

And, you see, in the memory, it’s just a glance, but Aziraphale is there. He’s always been there, seems like, as long back as Crowley can remember, but memory’s always a bit funny. So much of infinity to remember, no hard drives or USBs or any new fangled technology to back it all up. 

So, yes, getting back to the point of it, Crowley’s deepest, fuzziest, vaguest and most incomprehensible memory is about Aziraphale. A real shocker, isn’t it?

It’s bright in the memory, too bright to think too long about, like when you walk out of a movie theater in the afternoon but worse. It’s bright and there’s a voice talking behind him, saying nothing worth worrying about, muttering a name that he can’t bear to remember. 

There’s somebody talking to him, of course, but he’s paying no attention, staring across the cloudy ramparts like some kind of longing lover, nothing starcrossed about it, not quite yet. And Aziraphale, he’s there, of course. He’s standing there, glowing more than can be considered commonplace these days, and even from this distance Crowley (though he supposes that name would be a little out of place, here) can see the worried tilt to Aziraphale’s brows, listening so intently to the inconsequential angel next to him.

“Are you even listening to me?” the angel behind him says, and Crowley tilts his head, tries to seem like he is listening. 

“Super interesting stuff, yeah,” he says, and his voice comes out lighter than usual, and Aziraphale looks younger when he smiles, as if that’s at all possible. He looks farther away than ever, from here, compared to their typical continents apart, something unattainable in the way his skin flushes gold and pink.

(In memories, dreams, this one at least, Crowley’s wings feel lighter, and some part of him aches.)

-

“Are you dreaming again, dear?” Aziraphale asks when Crowley blinks his eyes open slowly. Like a cat, Az told him once on waking from a nap.

“I only dream about you, angel,” he mumbles, wrapping an arm around Aziraphale’s waist and nuzzling into his side. “Read to me, I missed your voice while I was sleeping.”

“You flatter me too much,” Aziraphale says too fondly, ghosting a kiss over Crowley’s forehead. He takes in a deep breath and begins to read, and Crowley lets him. They can talk about the dreaming later; they have forever to spare.

-

“Do you ever think about it, how it was before you fell?” Aziraphale asks one afternoon, lunching at an upscale cafe in Athens. He’s funny that way, always seems to ask about whatever’s been on Crowley’s mind. 

“Oh, maybe,” he says, and he considers stealing a bite of Aziraphale’s baklava just to kill some time before another nonanswer. “I figure I’ve thought about most things at least once.”

“Maybe more than once,” he says after a few more minutes, after Aziraphale seems content to drop the subject. He takes a sip of his wine, feels it burn in his throat on the way down. 

“Twice, even?” Aziraphale asks, with that same little snide tone in his voice, and anyone who thinks angels to be perfect hasn’t met an angel. Of course, Crowley’s personal bias notwithstanding. 

“I have - okay, more than twice, sure. There’s a memory I have, sometimes,” Crowley says, and it’s hard to talk about, hard to think about it and put it into words. It’s hard to discuss something so near fiction, something so close and so far out of reach.

Aziraphale blinks at him over the rim of his glasses, and Crowley wonders for a moment, as he has innumerable times, if it’s one of the vanities that he affords himself, the outdated wire frames and thick lenses. Crowley treats himself to a bite of the baklava anyway, as strangely bland and pointless as it may be. 

“It’s hard to remember, angel. But I know you’re in it,” he says, and Aziraphale raises his eyebrows, so quiet like any comment would be an interruption. “You’re always there, in all the memories that count, at least. Anything that matters.”

“Darling, do you remember before you fell?” Aziraphale asks, picking his way through the nonanswers with the practiced ease of a man blessed with the patience to do so for six thousand years.

“Sometimes,” Crowley says, and he can feel the tips of his ears get hot, makes a mental note to make sure they don’t catch on fire. “Just one memory, a little snippet, sometimes. I don’t know why I still have it, it’s just - flashes of you, so beautiful up there. Before the garden, before anything of us.”

And Aziraphale reaches across the table to lock their fingers together at that, rubs his thumb in a sweeping arc over Crowley’s wrist. It’s a gentle touch, something that wouldn’t count as anything to passers by, two lovers with fingers laced over baklava and afternoon wine in Athens. If anyone was watching, it wouldn’t mean anything. 

(Of course, it means everything, but Crowley can’t find himself willing to say it.)

-

“I don’t think I could’ve handled you as you were before,” Aziraphale mutters with his face tucked into Crowley’s neck, curled into his side on the big couch in the study. 

“We’re sworn enemies,” Crowley says, no longer bothering to pay any attention to the game show muted on the television. “Maybe that’s the thrill of it.” 

“I just can’t stand the company of angels,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley snorts. “A load of self-righteous dicks, all of them.”

“I’m worried I’ve rubbed off on you, angel, calling your relations a load of dicks,” Crowley mumbles. “I’ve met one or two angels I’ve been able to put up with.”

“Who’s the other one?” Aziraphale asks with a little laugh.

“I’m glad we met in the Garden,” Crowley says, changing the subject, pressing a kiss into Aziraphale’s hair, gently curled over his forehead, like those cherubs on the greeting cards. Crowley vows to never make the comparison where Aziraphale can hear it. 

(Every day, for these 6,000 odd years, his heart feels a touch lighter, for all his wings stay a leaden weight, and that’s enough.)


End file.
